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COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy
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| Elizabeth Tulac stands next to her charred oven with her neighbor Ryan Seward. Ms. Tulac credits Mr. Seward with saving her house after Mr. Seward extinguished a kitchen blaze with a garden hose last week. |
Neighbor becomes hero after putting out house fire
The words, hero and fireman, often go hand in hand. Putting their own lives at risk, firefighters burst into flaming buildings, saving lives, homes and property.
Claremont resident Ryan Seward, 30, is no fireman, but neighbors around the 700 block of North Indian Hill Boulevard have labeled him a hero after he saved a home from serious fire damage last Tuesday night.
Around 6 p.m., Mr. Seward returned home from work. He rents a backhouse from Jaclyn Cook, just a 5-minute walk from the Village where he works at Spitfire Studios as a web designer. While playing his guitar at home, Mr. Seward suddenly began to smell something funny in the air.
“I thought they were having a barbeque next door,” he said.
Upon closer inspection from his second story balcony, Mr. Seward saw smoke billowing from his neighbor’s home. He realized the beeping noise was not from a dryer or distant alarm clock, but his neighbor’s smoke detector.
He immediately ran down the steps and pounded on Ms. Cook’s door, telling her to call 911 because of the fire next door. Not satisfied to wait for help, he ran up the neighbor’s driveway and looked through a window into the kitchen.
“It looked like an inferno in there,” Mr. Seward said. “There were billowing orange flames and lots of smoke. I knew I had to act.”
At that point, he was still unsure if anyone was inside, perhaps unconscious. So he ran to the rear kitchen entrance, gingerly touched the doorknob to check if it was too hot and opened the unlocked door.
“Smoke just started pouring out,” he said. “I had to duck down real low otherwise I wouldn’t be able to breathe.”
Finding a garden hose nearby, Mr. Seward began to douse the flames through the open door as best as he could. At one point, thoughts of serious danger passed through his mind, perhaps if a gas line caught fire and exploded.
“I guess it was just instinctual,” Mr. Seward said. “I’m not going to sit there and watch someone’s house burn down.” (story continues below)
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COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy
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| Claremonter Ryan Seward used this garden hose, which was sitting next to the back door, to extinguish a kitchen fire at his neighbor's house on Indian Hill Boulevard. |
After about 5 minutes of hosing down the kitchen, police arrived on the scene. The officers entered the front door to check for anyone inside. A short time later, several fire trucks arrived, but by the time they got there, the fire was already out.
“Someone was looking after me,” said Elizabeth Tulac, who lives at the residence. “And Ryan was the one who made it happen.”
Earlier that day, Ms. Tulac was baking brownies for her classmates and left the home around 3:30 p.m. She believes that she forgot to turn off the oven before she left, which was running at 350 degrees.
Her insurance company told her that leaving an oven running at that temperature should not start a fire. The appliance malfunctioned, relieving her of responsibility for the damage.
Still with original redwood flooring, the Tulac home was built over 100 years ago and is listed as a historical home in Claremont. Ms. Tulac and her husband John have lived at the home since 1995.
“Not only did he save me the heartache of having lost everything, he saved the community a real gem as well,” Ms. Tulac said. “So we are all thankful for his heroism.”
Although family pictures were stored in a closet behind the oven and a family heirloom walking stick from Ireland was nearby, very little damage was done. With minutes determining whether a fire goes from minor and isolate to totally out of control, Ms. Tulac said she could live with some smoke damage, some charred cabinets and decorations and a destroyed oven.
Residents in the area were happy to hear the story of a neighbor helping a neighbor and the positive outcome.
“It just shows how tight-knit the community is,” said neighbor Marta Chozet. “Everyone is watching out for each other and it’s very nice to see that.”
—Tony Krickl
